Star's Storm: Lords of Kassis Book 2 by S. E. Smith

repeated
quietly.
    *.*.*
    Jarmen lowered his head as he walked by a
small group of guards. The small device attached to his cloak
rendered him invisible to the eye for the most part. The only thing
that could still be seen were his glowing eyes, a left over from
his days in the Mendes Research labs where he had been created. He
pressed along the side, sucking in his breath when one of the
guards staggered slightly, almost running into him. He might be
invisible but he could still be felt. It had taken him longer than
he expected to gain entrance to the prison. He had landed his small
transport several kilometers away and hiked closer to the fortress
four days before. He had camped just outside the dead zone, trying
to figure out how he was going to get in. His luck changed on the
morning of the fifth day when a small group of guards had driven a
series of transports out through the entrance to discard waste in a
nearby ravine that had broken open probably a thousand years ago.
He waited until the last one backed up before grabbing a
maintenance grip and holding on for the journey back to the
prison.
    He had searched section after section, level
after level for where his friend was being held. He had almost
given up until he rounded a corner and almost collided with Tai
Tek. If one of the guards hadn’t called his attention at the last
minute, Jarmen would now probably be enjoying the bottom of the
deep ravine with the trash.
    He had followed Tai Tek for almost an hour
before the traitorous councilman finally made his way down to
Jazin. Jarmen closed his eyes and cursed silently as his friend was
tortured. There was nothing he could do to prevent it. He had been
unable to follow Tai Tek into the room because of the number of
guards standing in the way. The coward never went anywhere with
less than twenty men surrounding him. It was only after he left
that Jarmen was able to sneak into the cell and release his friend.
He regretted he could not do more. He had slipped a dissolvable
pain patch on Jazin but he could do nothing else until the huge
Tearnat arrived with Torak’s and Ajaska’s forces. He had been
shocked when the female mate of the Tearnat Leader had not only
recognized him but told him things she shouldn’t have known. It was
only her insistent demands that Jazin hadn’t been killed that had
finally gotten through to him. He had done a little research and
discovered the real video surveillance from the Uri Spaceport
docking bay that Jazin had refueled at but had been skeptical until
he had shown the video to the female. Once he saw the evidence for
himself, he had contacted the female again and given her the
prototype he and Jazin had been working on so it could be used to
rescue Jazin. He knew only a small, stealthy team of warriors would
be able to save Jazin before he could be executed. In the meantime,
he would do what he could to help his friend survive until the
warriors arrived.
    Jarmen lifted his head and walked silently
back down to the prison cell holding Jazin. His thoughts turned to
a time when it had been him in such a place. His torture had been
different. His tormentors had been the scientists experimenting on
ways to create the ultimate warrior. They had succeeded to a
certain extent. His body and mind were that of the perfect warrior.
He could move, think, and kill faster than any other. The one thing
they failed to do, though, was eliminate his conscious, no matter
how many times they tried.
    Jazin had discovered information about the
illegal research facility from a drunken guard on leave. The man
had a video chip of some of the experiments. He swore it was the
only thing that kept him alive. The man told Jazin that other
guards who decided to leave the research facility would disappeared
only to later become one of the casualties of the researcher's
experiments. He was determined he wouldn’t end up becoming a
monster like what the doctors had created or dead like some of the
other guards he